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How To Avoid People Effectively

Lukas Schwekendiek
4 min readSep 10, 2022

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Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash

If you really want to avoid certain people, the best thing you can do is to tell them that you do not want to talk to them anymore.

Go up to them and be completely honest.

They will not like it, but when you do that you create a clear statement from your point of view.

You do not have to be a jerk about it, but putting your cards on the table gives them a chance to make a choice on that matter.

“I do not have the energy to have a negative person/to spend this much time on this relationship/to always be the one to come up with what to do. I would love to spend time with you but can only do so if ___. Without that our friendship is not something I can keep up at this point.”

Make “I” statements and let the person know what you expect of the relationship.

Put the ball in their court.

From there they can decide whether they are willing to accept your conditions, want to create a different compromise or are simply not interested anymore.

Either way, you will likely come out with a better situation.

If that is not something you are comfortable doing, then I suggest you make plans that trump spending time with others.

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Lukas Schwekendiek
Lukas Schwekendiek

Written by Lukas Schwekendiek

Life Coach, Speaker, Writer. Published on TIME, Inc & Huffington Post. Coaching available again! Email: Lukas.schwekendiek@gmail.com with the word "Coaching"

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